Subsidiary Use of Foreign Marketing Knowledge

A source of potentially valuable knowledge in multinational enterprises is foreign marketing knowledge-that is, knowledge from one country unit that may offer value and competitive advantage to marketing managers in other country units. This article builds on marketing and management knowledge transfer research to further understand both the conditions under which one subsidiary uses external knowledge from another subsidiary and the outcomes of such use in the subsidiary's market. Using the theory of value creation and appropriation and field interviews with headquarter and subsidiary marketing managers, the authors develop a model and research propositions of the enabling, motivating, and perceiving conditions that affect foreign marketing knowledge use and subsequent effects on marketing program effectiveness and efficiency, organization identification, and intellectual capitol in subsidiaries of multinational enterprises.